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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos

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stephentotilo

Behind The Games
Weird how this post has a very different tone than the one on your site.

Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.
 

conman

Member
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.
Don't address us as a unified collective. Thanks.

The whole "Press vs. Civies" attitude is part of the problem with games journalism IMO. Further evidence of you and some of your peers' dismissive contempt for your readers.
 
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

Whether or not you have good stories, I dont really see why that should stop people from calling out the ones that amount to PR driven consumer porn.

I am not saying everything on Kotaku is compleley bad. I am calling out the specific stuff on Kotaku that I think is bad. Everybody else should too.

For the record that Silicon Knights story is good. Everybody should read it. But it is also not really relevant to this thread's topic.
 

Corto

Member
The truth is that though it's rather commendable that you guys (Stephen and Jason) come here and engage in dialogue with us, showing that you seem to care of these issues that Rab article touched on, you both seem to be rather dismissive of them outside of this thread. It almost seems like you're trying to please everyone and displease no one.
 

conman

Member
This thread is full of people painting the game press with a pretty wide brush.
The difference is that many of us are talking about an industry, not any individual people. The individuals are just examples of a much broader, more institutionalized problem. GAF is not an industry built on common ethical/professional practices.
 

BeauRoger

Unconfirmed Member
That's the world's worst excuse for a Halo unboxing video!

There are plenty of good stories to report. More than we can ever get to. Some are stories people in this thread would like. Some aren't. Good reporting takes time and a lot of effort. It's nice when people read it and remember it.

Dont get me wrong, i loved that piece on Silicon Knights, and would love to see more articles like that. But when you say that there are so many good stories to report on, well, its not really reflected on gaming sites at large. Pieces like the SK one are few and far in between. When one visit gaming news sites and sees that the stories dominating month after month are the recycled ones, the bit sized articles, minor announcements, trailers, inconsequential things, you start to wonder if there really is that much to report on. Perhaps we just have a different view of what constitutes a good story though, and i understand that some stories require time and a lot of resources, but compared to any other category of journalism, the gaming side seems to rely much less of the quality pieces and much more on the ones mentioned.
 

Corto

Member
And there is indeed a thread about that Silicon Knights article.

Here

With attribution and kudos directed to Kotaku for the wonderful work from the OP.
 
No real reason is given for not writing about this other than it is not, "interesting." It is hard to know how to interpret that. Trying hard to give off an air of aloof cool superiority. Genuinely being more interested in opening boxes. Maybe some enigmatic reason of which the truth we will never know.

But surely the writers are claiming to be even more grounded and humble than the crazy conspiracy theorists of GAF. And they are proud of their real journalism pieces on subjects we don't really care about as much like why some kid trolls on xbox live. So it's just enigmatic I guess.
 

Lime

Member
I'm sorry, but this is just deflecting from the main issue. It should be considered necessary for most gaming media to report or at least mention something about this. It is a necessary debate and sticking your heads into the sand as always isn't sufficient if you ever want to be considered a person with integrity.

As it stands now, I have yet to see a good reason for the complete silence on the issue from some of the major sites. Bar a nuclear attack, there isn't any good reason for not talking about something as 'big' as this.
 

Shurs

Member
The difference is that many of us are talking about an industry, not any individual people. The individuals are just examples of a much broader, more institutionalized problem. GAF is not an industry built on common ethical/professional practices.

But GAF is a community. One which has metrics (post count and views) one could use to make educated guesses about what interests the community as a whole.
 

Marcel

Member
This thread is full of people painting the game press with a pretty wide brush.

Don't mistake my dislike of the media hackery that goes at Kotaku and other places as a distaste for all people who write on games. I have a lot of respect for people like Rab Florence, Ray Barnholdt etc. who do not rely on a unique view bait business model to drive their content. Ray publishes a great zine/blog that has some great articles about actual game culture and history in Japan.

Kurt Kalata of Hardcoregaming101.net is also one of the best because he just talks about games, pure and simple. The importance of a series, or interviews with translators and voice cast directors. People who were/are important to games you might not know about due to the kind of dialogue you find in aggregate game blogs which are usually bloated with cosplay/ top 10 lists/unboxing fluff pieces.
 

conman

Member
I'm sorry, but this is just deflecting from the main issue. It should be considered necessary for most gaming media to report or at least mention something about this. It is a necessary debate and sticking your heads into the sand as always isn't sufficient if you ever want to be considered a person with integrity.

As it stands now, I have yet to see a good reason for the complete silence on the issue from some of the major sites. Bar a nuclear attack, there isn't any good reason for not talking about something as 'big' as this.
The other way of looking at this is to consider what would happen if they reported on the pervasive role of PR in games journalism. What would that do to their credibility? The reason there's "no news" in that story is because it's both utterly familiar and utterly self-destructive.

But many games writers are smart and creative. You would think they could figure out some ways to write about this that makes them look good. And who knows? They may actually reflect on some of their current practices and realize that they're probably not a great idea. And it would probably take writing about this in the first place to force them to reflect in that way. Seems like a worthwhile bit of "news" to me.

Saying there's "no news" in this means you're: 1) scared, 2) oblivious, or 3) uncreative.
 

Shurs

Member
And there is indeed a thread about that Silicon Knights article.

Here

With attribution and kudos directed to Kotaku for the wonderful work from the OP.

Though, it does not mention the author of the piece.

That is one thing I'd like to see more of here: acknowledgement, both good and bad of the people writing these pieces rather than attributing them solely to websites.
 
Kotaku has been making some pretty decent strides in terms of quality since Totilo took over. Doesn't seem fair to jump all over them just because they're one of the few sites having a discussion with us GAFfers.

I generally find members of the gaming press to be unbearable but Jason and Stephen have been pretty good through this.
 

CrisKre

Member
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not juest Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.
Maybe because that particular article is how joutnalism, you know, is SUPPOSED to work? And many, many people here commended the site for it. You suggesting that people should discuss or point out cases of lack of journalistic integrity in the same manner of cases where invedtigative reports turn out with stabdars that should be DE FACTO withing the gaming community is disingenious.
 

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

Truth? Your exposé on a shitty developer that puts out shitty games is far from interesting (to me). It's like when Giant Bomb said they had "exclusive, breaking news" and it was some weird old guys from the 70s making some new Pacman song or some shit. Give me Activision/Infinity Ward type shit and I'll give you a 100 page thread. Give me TMZ/paparazzi style rumors or pictures of famous gaming personas doing crazy shit and I'll give you a 100 page thread. Give me an interview with an influential gaming persona that doesn't have a PR sentinel sitting in the corner nodding to what they can and can't answer and I'll give you a 100 page thread.

As someone who had been reading Kotaku before you were ever there, I most certainly did NOT go for the "journalism" on that site. That you think Kotaku some how caters to that is crazy. Though I stopped reading after Crecente left, so clearly there was something there before that isn't there now.
 

JDSN

Banned
Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?


Its here, with a six-page thread full of people commenting and thanking Kotaku for making such a great story. Credit is where credit is due. Its also a relatively benign article, its easy to make put under the spotlight someone with no true pull, if you want more pages of ego-strocking maybe try writing something beyond some faliure of a team no one cares about.
 

beastmode

Member
Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.
You seriously expected an article about this failure of an X-Men game no one played to get as much attention as a discussion on major issues with the way games are covered? (For the record: I read it, liked it, and tweeted it.)

As for the "sweeping under the rug comment," no one on GAF could potentially lose earnings for paying attention to Silicon Knights or X-Men.
 
The truth is that though it's rather commendable that you guys (Stephen and Jason) come here and engage in dialogue with us, showing that you seem to care of these issues that Rab article touched on, you both seem to be rather dismissive of them outside of this thread. It almost seems like you're trying to please everyone and displease no one.
I was just thinking about that, come off as dismissing the problem where thousands of their fans see it, the website and twitter, but also try to keep the minority at neogaf happy.
 

Marcel

Member
Stephen, even though I obviously have...different views of your organization and its work, do you at least agree that there should be a watchdog group that holds even entertainment media journalists accountable for conflicts of interest and shady practices? I know you come out of the NYT and whatnot, so I'm sure you may have heard of www.shameproject.com where influential and popular journalists that actually do affect the greater public dialogue about issues are scrutinized for their dubious connections.
 
As someone who had been reading Kotaku before you were ever there, I most certainly did NOT go for the "journalism" on that site. That you think Kotaku some how caters to that is crazy. Though I stopped reading after Crecente left, so clearly there was something there before that isn't there now.

Pictures of his kids or boing shit about his life? Crecente was and is horrible.
 
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

I appreciate you and Jason actually coming into this thread and speaking with us. I do agree that Kotaku tends to be unfairly bashed sometimes. The Silicon Knights story is a great piece. I also realize that if you were to do a story on the whole Florence affair, an actual good story would take time and legwork.

I don't think every game journalist is a corporate shill. The problem I think is that by remaining silent on issues like these it hurts the perception of the vast majority of journalists who are honest in your field. This stuff isn't exactly new. It seems like every game journalist has some horror story about dealing with public relations or something shady that has happened in the past. The problem is that more times than not it's not reported on publicly, is only mentioned years later or it takes a place like Gamasutra to shed light on it.
 

JABEE

Member
You seriously expected an article about this failure of an X-Men game no one played to get as much attention as a discussion on major issues with the way games are covered? (For the record: I read it, liked it, and tweeted it.)

As for the "sweeping under the rug comment," no one on GAF could potentially lose earnings for paying attention to Silicon Knights or X-Men.

Yes. That is why I'm skeptical of them not wanting to talk about the topic on Kotaku. There are probably serious ramifications for talking about the ethical questions of interacting with PR. GAF doesn't sweep things under the rug. A lot of people find this more interesting. I think people who write about games for a living and depend on the trust of their audience would want to challenge this issue head-on.
 

conman

Member
Stephen, even though I obviously have...different views of your organization and its work, do you at least agree that there should be a watchdog group that holds even entertainment media journalists accountable for conflicts of interest and shady practices? I know you come out of the NYT and whatnot, so I'm sure you may have heard of www.shameproject.com where influential and popular journalists that actually do affect the greater public dialogue about issues are scrutinized for their dubious connections.
I don't think that's the issue here. That only really applies to the outliers, the truly egregious offenders. I don't think anyone would disagree that those people need to be held accountable. And that's nothing new.

IMO the core of the issue in much of this thread is the "accepted" behavior on the press side of the games industry. It's the stuff that most journalists see as "innocuous" and "harmless" that's in question. The harmless conversations with PR. The Twitter networks. The friendships with PR. The "playing nice" to keep getting pre-release materials/interviews. The permeable career boundary between journalism and PR/development/publishing. The fancy press kits. The expensive events. Etc. Etc. It's the small stuff.
 

Margalis

Banned
Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

1. I don't see how on one hand you can claim that this issue isn't being covered because it's not interesting to the audience while on the other hand complain about how much attention it's getting.

2. There isn't a "whiff of scandal" here, there is actual scandal.

3. The fact that Kotaku didn't cover this is not in itself a terrible thing. But that fact that nobody covered it while their writers used their Twitter feeds to dismiss the problem *is* a terrible thing. And it's a little silly for every games writer in this thread to claim "I take this super seriously!" when we can go on Twitter and find them mocking it.

Mocking dismissal is not how you treat a serious issue.
 

Zeroth

Member
Wait, not only is there a thread but you posted in it hours ago thanking everyone for their kind words of praise:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=43660282&postcount=249

What the hell with the grandstandind and pretending you are not getting credit?

He meant to ask why that thread is not as long as this one (hinting that GAF criticizes Kotaku more than praise it when credit is due), rather than why there was no thread about it. Not saying I agree with his point, just clearing that out.
 

stephentotilo

Behind The Games

Quote

Member
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.
dew_Halo4_10.12.jpg

???

I'm just kidding.
 

Margalis

Banned
I did see someone mention that they thought that the continued suspicion that some gamers have of games media should clearly qualify this as something worthy of coverage, but that works both ways. On the one hand, sure, those suspicions are intensified now and that's interesting. But, on the other hand, this is more of the same. The sun coming up another day doesn't make for the world's most interesting story.


It's not "suspicion", it's fact.

This is the problem with you and your compatriots going on to Twitter to make jokes or writing dismissive pieces about conspiracy theories, forum rabble, etc. You completely ignore the actual facts.

The fact that journalists used their personal Twitter feeds to spout PR in return for payment? Is that a "suspicion" or is that a thing that happened? (Hint: it happened)
 

DjangoReinhardt

Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
Um, because I just had a drink? I don't know. It's almost as weird as people having amnesia about the good journalism done on Kotaku just so they can selectively bash us. People can be unpredictable and occasionally inconsistent.

Why isn't the thread about our Silicon Knights story this long, NeoGAF? Sweeping that one under the rug?

Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

There are more comments in the thread here than there are on your own site. Cute little "zinger", though.
 

Marcel

Member
People frustrated with an already untrustworthy enthusiast press who are revealed (with evidence!) to have casual conflicts of interest with publishers and other interested commercial parties will usually generate a lot of deserved vitriol, yes.
 

conman

Member
People frustrated with an already untrustworthy enthusiast press who are revealed (with evidence!) to have casual conflicts of interest with publishers and other interested commercial parties will usually generate a lot of deserved vitriol, yes.
That's about as good a summary of this thread as any.
 
Ace job linking to a thread I already commented in to tell me it exists.

Still, he has a valid point. Your article got a dedicated thread with lots of praise from many peoples. But it's not enough for you? According to you, we swept it under the rug?
Let me ask you then. What makes you think an article about a decadent developer should have as much steam as this subject on our forum?
 

stephentotilo

Behind The Games
You seriously expected an article about this failure of an X-Men game no one played to get as much attention as a discussion on major issues with the way games are covered? (For the record: I read it, liked it, and tweeted it.)

As for the "sweeping under the rug comment," no one on GAF could potentially lose earnings for paying attention to Silicon Knights or X-Men.

The implication or explicit statement that we didn't cover the latest games journalism scandal because it would have cost us money is bullshit. That's the strange turn this has taken. We did not refrain from reporting this story last week because we were afraid of upsetting PR people.

Smaller outlets might be more dependent on access than we are, but that's not a factor here. I'm not sure what I can say or do to convince anyone of that If the only way to convince anyone that we're not afraid of PR is to write about this exact story, then there's no point of convincing said person. I'm sure it would be news to PR people across the gaming industry that we're afraid of them.

Thank you to those in this thread who said some kind words about Andrew McMillen's Silicon Knights story. He spent over a year chasing down a lot of that.
 

BeauRoger

Unconfirmed Member
This whole debacle would not big as big of a deal if some people the gaming press hadn't, quite vainly, branded themselves as "journalists". I mean, nobody has accused perez hilton that he lacks journalistic integrity. Why? cause he doesnt have any illusions about what he is.

When most of the stories on a site are rewritten press releases, minor announcements, trailers and such, i wouldnt qualify them as journalists. If one in every 20th story posted is a thought out, independant journalistic piece, then do you judge them by that one story or 19 other largely inconsequential ones?
 

Gannd

Banned
Imagine a world where good games journalism doesn't generate really long threads on NeoGAF, but threads about games journalism and the alleged lack of good games journalism does. I guess everyone, not just Nick Denton, loves the whiff of scandal.

Why doesn't the nightly news report that 99% of the world is doing okay?

It's not the whiff of the scandal. I think this story should have been reported. I think the reason the game press is so hesitant to report on it, is that you guys are much to chummy with each other and much to chummy with the game industry. Many of you guys hang out, go out, and are friends with each other. I think that the games press often want to have it both ways that you're journalists and that "hey man, it's just video games".


I think that not reporting on this story isn't OMG!!! worthy. I get more annoyed when I hear game writers say that they are in the video game industry, when they are not.
 

Marcel

Member
The implication or explicit statement that we didn't cover the latest games journalism scandal because it would have cost us money is bullshit. That's the strange turn this has taken. We did not refrain from reporting this story last week because we were afraid of upsetting PR people.

Smaller outlets might be more dependent on access than we are, but that's not a factor here. I'm not sure what I can say or do to convince anyone of that If the only way to convince anyone that we're not afraid of PR is to write about this exact story, then there's no point of convincing said person. I'm sure it would be news to PR people across the gaming industry that we're afraid of them.

Thank you to those in this thread who said some kind words about Andrew McMillen's Silicon Knights story. He spent over a year chasing down a lot of that.

No one is putting down the work of a freelance writer. I'm putting down the chummy and shady way the larger game aggregate blogs, their employees, and certain journalists act with publishers and PR. Your supposition that the number of replies = importance to NeoGAF speaks to how you think, not to a community at large.
 

beastmode

Member
The implication or explicit statement that we didn't cover the latest games journalism scandal because it would have cost us money is bullshit. That's the strange turn this has taken. We did not refrain from reporting this story last week because we were afraid of upsetting PR people.
You're surprised we don't take your word on it? This whole discussion took off because someone faced consequences for what they wrote. Even if you are that oblivious, you're not excused from your insulting response.
Smaller outlets might be more dependent on access than we are, but that's not a factor here. I'm not sure what I can say or do to convince anyone of that If the only way to convince anyone that we're not afraid of PR is to write about this exact story, then there's no point of convincing said person. I'm sure it would be news to PR people across the gaming industry that we're afraid of them.
Explicit threats are not the major issue here. The relationship between PR and the games press is unethical.
 

Margalis

Banned
Note to Xbox Live: This Is Chong, Not Cheech.
...
Reader Edfire77 sends this in. In the TV & Movies section of Xbox Live, one of the tiles points to movies celebrating Hispanic culture. Great. But this stoner is Tommy Chong, not Cheech Marin.

This is the front page of Kotaku right now. Lol. I'm sure this is an issue that many many gamers care deeply about.

Maybe this is what you consider being a watchdog? Way to keep MS in line!

No time to even print a reader response about this mess - but hey we have time to clarify the relationship between 2 stoners popular when most of the Kotaku audience were zygotes!
 
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